]]>As the international climate negotiations continue in Paris, we can’t overstate this important point: Given the political climate in the United States Senate, there is virtually no chance of a new, binding treaty on climate change being ratified. It’s depressing, but it is reality. The current Senate can’t even muster a majority who are willing to state that climate change is caused by human activity, let alone a two-thirds majority that would commit to doing something about it. Not to mention the fact that, aside from trade and nuclear deals, the Senate has only ratified one multilateral treaty since 2000. Given these obstacles, it’s critical that the U.S. do as much as it can to cut emissions and combat climate change under our current laws. That’s why the commitment that the Obama Administration sent to Paris relies heavily on the Clean Air Act.

What does that commitment entail, and how are we making it happen? The U.S. has pledged to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 – which would put our emissions about where they were in 1990. We have also pledged to reduce emissions even further (to 25-28% below 2005 levels) by 2025. The centerpiece of this effort is the 2013 Climate Action Plan, an ambitious proposal that includes measures to promote community and natural area resilience and to foster international cooperation, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our experts put together a summary of the elements of the plan last year, and we are pleased to report that a lot of progress has been made since then:

Energy-efficient vehicles and buildings

One major element of the U.S. commitment involves improving energy efficiency and reducing waste, particularly in vehicles and buildings. Over the past several years, the U.S. has raised the fuel economy standards for passenger cars, and is in the process of doing so for trucks and commercial vehicles as well. The Administration has also invested in improving the energy efficiency of buildings, and in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide. These include methane from landfills, and gases like hydrofluorocarbons and volatile organic compounds. There is less of these gasses in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but they are particularly powerful at warming the planet. These are all important steps, and each one will make a difference. But the biggest change we can make to reduce carbon emissions will come from changing how we produce power.

Less fossil fuel….

The Climate Action Plan sets new rules for new and existing fossil-fueled power plants. The two keys to this piece of the puzzle are the New Power Plants Rule and the Clean Power Plan. The New Power Plants Rule, finalized in August, requires new coal-fired and natural gas power plants to limit their carbon pollution. The Clean Power Plan—the most ambitious of the Administration’s efforts—sets the first nationwide standards for limiting carbon pollution from existing power plants. This rule will cut carbon emissions from the power sector by 32% nationwide below 2005 levels by 2030. A hallmark of the plan is that it gives states and utilities tremendous flexibility in how to meet this threshold. They can switch to fossil fuel-free power sources, or improve the efficiency of the plants that do burn fossil fuels.

….and more renewable energy

The Clean Power Plan also builds on the Administration’s efforts to deploy additional renewable energy across the country. So far, these efforts have increased solar generation by nearly twenty-fold and tripled wind-powered electricity production since 2009. The goal is to double both of these again by 2020, and the plan includes a number of measures to boost renewable energy, like training military veterans in solar installation and expanding access to solar generation in low-income communities.

Expanding renewable energy is a vital component in combating climate change—but it needs to be smart from the start. This means that a project’s effects on wildlife and habitat must be considered and addressed right from the beginning, not just as an afterthought. Development of wind and solar resources must from the outset consider both how much renewable energy is needed on a given landscape to meet demand, and also what’s required to sustain species and habitat on that landscape. It’s about more than megawatts—we need to be sure that America’s clean energy transition leaves us not only with a healthier atmosphere, but with thriving populations of wildlife and intact ecosystems as well.

The Paris climate negotiations are a good reminder that it’s not enough just to aim for a clean energy future. We also have to pay attention to how we get there. The President’s Climate Action Plan and its associated new policies and proposals have once again made the U.S. a global leader in taking action on climate change. By reducing vehicle and building emissions, revamping our power sector, and finding solutions that place wildlife conservation front and center alongside renewable energy development, we can make real strides against climate change, while also giving wildlife, humans and habitats a better chance at a more stable future.

All Eyes on Paris. This blog is the third in a four-part series on the international climate negotiations in Paris. Our first entry introducing the Paris talks is posted here, and our second, describing wildlife we could lose to climate change, is here. The series will conclude Friday with a summary of the outcomes of the Paris climate negotiations.

]]>BLM takes one big step towards sustainable renewable energy planning, but can do more to protect wildlife

One of the rarest sightings in the California desert is not what you think it might be. It is not the appearance of water, the presence of a desert tortoise emerging from its burrow, or even the spying of the mysterious mountain lion. It is the sighting of a Mohave ground squirrel above ground.

These elusive mammals spend perhaps two months of their lives above ground when conditions are right, and they can only be found in the West Mojave Desert of California. Unfortunately, the sighting of the Mohave ground squirrel is becoming rarer as their habitat is lost to energy development, industrial development and other land-intensive development and their population shrinks. The specter of large-scale renewable energy development is the latest potential threat to the survival of this state-protected species.

Several years ago, the fate of the ground squirrel – along with other desert wildlife – hung in the balance as hundreds of thousands of acres of desert lands were proposed for industrial renewable energy development. Fortunately, California and the Department of the Interior joined together to propose a new approach to energy development – a landscape scale look across the California Desert to determine where projects could be placed on already disturbed and degraded lands, while protecting those areas most important for desert wildlife, recreation, and other natural resources. This new approach started with the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States (Solar PEIS), but was significantly expanded in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP).

The DRECP represents a paradigm shift in how renewable energy development is planned in California and nationally. If done well, the DRECP could mean that desert wildlife like the tortoise and the ground squirrel have a future even in the face of climate change.

This week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a new part of the plan that addresses how and where different types of land will be used for renewable energy. It is an important step forward for the DRECP, and is expected to be finalized in early 2016.

There is a lot to celebrate in the BLM’s latest plan. It protects 3.8 million acres of lands with important natural resource, scenic and recreational values by designating them as part of the National Landscape Conservation System. Iconic areas such as the Silurian Valley, Chuckwalla Bench and the Amargosa River watershed are designated as National Conservation Lands. Most importantly, these protections are permanent and cannot be overturned in the future.

The plan also includes 388,000 acres of BLM lands in the desert where renewable energy projects can be built without significant impacts to wildlife. These projects will help California meet its aggressive climate change goals without putting vital wildlife habitat under development.

So, is the new plan a win for desert wildlife conservation? Should we celebrate the conservation of desert tortoise and Mohave ground squirrel for future generations?

Not yet. While the latest plan has some important benefits, there are still pieces of it that are damaging to wildlife, and must be improved when the BLM issues its final plan in early 2016. The fate of the West Mojave hangs in the balance.

The West Mojave Desert is a checkerboard of public and private lands where development has already fragmented the landscape. Although it is a disturbed landscape, the West Mojave still has immense value to the future of desert tortoise, Mohave ground squirrel and other desert wildlife. The best available science shows that this region will serve as a critical refuge for desert plants and wildlife in the face of climate change. As the desert becomes hotter and drier, the West Mojave will continue to provide the right habitat conditions for desert wildlife to survive.

Unfortunately, while the new DRECP BLM Plan focuses millions of acres of conservation in the eastern part of the California Desert, the West Mojave’s future – and that of the Mohave ground squirrel — is far more uncertain. The plan would open up large areas of the West Mojave to renewable energy and other development. The Fremont Valley, Rose Valley, North of Kramer, and Pisgah Valley areas are especially critical to the future survival of desert wildlife. These areas should be re-designated as conservation lands, and be closed to any kind of development.

The BLM Plan also doesn’t affect private lands in the West Mojave, even though these are just as important to wildlife as public lands. The BLM should integrate its plan with the planning that desert counties are already doing for renewable energy development and conservation. These plans are critical to allowing both renewable energy development and conservation to worth together across the desert landscape.

While the future for the mysterious Mohave ground squirrel remains uncertain, it is not a lost cause. When the DRECP BLM Plan is finalized in early 2016, it can provide an important path forward for preserving our conservation legacy, while developing renewable energy in a responsible way. Only by pursing both of these goals can we meet California’s renewable energy needs and help combat the growing impacts of climate change.

]]>One of the regions that I have become more and more familiar with and in awe of through my work at Defenders is the California desert. This area of our country is often viewed by those who don’t live in or around it as barren, blistering and uninhabitable. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. While the desert life is not for everyone, life in the desert is incredible. And right now, there are two opportunities to protect this vital and fascinating landscape: the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) and three newly proposed California desert national monuments.

The DRECP is a desert-wide plan that aims to identify the most appropriate places for renewable energy while also providing needed conservation to plants and animals. This conservation is especially important in the West Mojave that harbors some of the most unique – and threatened – species of plants and animals in the United States. The West Mojave provides vital corridors (especially with a changing climate) for migrating wildlife and important (and dwindling) habitat for imperiled species like the Mohave ground squirrel, desert tortoise, golden eagle and many others. Much of this part of the desert has already been impacted by a variety of development pressures.

Places like Indian Wells Valley, Fremont Valley, North of Kramer Junction, Granite Mountains, Pisgah Valley and the north slope of the San Bernardino Mountains are particularly essential. My colleague here at Defenders who lives in the California desert region tells me about the golden eagles that soar over the Granite Mountains, the male desert tortoises fighting over female mates near Fremont Valley, the bighorn sheep that come down from the Cady Mountains into the Pisgah Valley in the winter to forage on winter annual plants and the green riparian corridors that wind down from the San Bernardino mountains into the dry desert landscape.

Concurrent with our work to conserve these important lands and plan responsibly for renewable energy development through the DRECP, we now also have an exciting opportunity – we are part of a diverse coalition that is turning to President Obama to designate the Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains National Monuments to ensure significant protections for these desert areas. We must protect these proposed monument lands and the lands in Pisgah Valley so that our desert wildlife can continue to survive and thrive in their native habitat into the future.

National Monument designation is made possible through the Antiquities Act, which grants presidents the ability to proclaim “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures and other objects of historic or scientific interest” as national monuments. National monuments recognize and protect cultural and ecological wonders all over the United States and outlying territories and include such sites as mountains, deserts, bridges and statues. Many serve multiple conservation functions – for example, in addition to conserving critical areas for imperiled wildlife, the Mojave Trails National Monument would also protect the most intact stretch of historic Route 66.

California senator Diane Feinstein has agreed that the Golden State’s golden sand deserts deserve protection, and she too, is encouraging President Obama to make that protection permanent.

Especially as we look to stem the impacts of climate change by decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels through renewable energy development, we must recognize that protection of intact habitat is key. The DRECP provides the Bureau of Land Management with an opportunity to do the right thing for wildlife: protect the remaining public land habitat for struggling species in the West Mojave, while the proposed Mojave Trails National Monument is an opportunity for the president to make a difference not only for wildlife, but for the many other values this area harbors. The wildlife, scenic vistas, mountains and waters in the California desert deserve permanent protection for all to be able to enjoy into the future.

Even with all of the important places for conservation of the Mojave desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, kit fox, and other animals excluded, there is still ample already-degraded desert land appropriate for large-scale solar energy development - that is where we should be directing projects.

From the perspective of a bighorn sheep, mountain ranges in the Mojave Desert are island oases of habitat amid seas of lowland desert. The seas are exposed, hot and lacking in water and resources, while desert mountain ranges support lush microclimates, seeps, springs, and food sources. Yet, as herds of bighorn sheep expand, they outgrow their mountain island. Eventually a herd will split and some sheep will migrate across the open lowlands to colonize a new mountain range. This pattern of growth, splitting and migration is essential to maintaining a healthy population of bighorn sheep in the desert. The genetic mixing that happens when herds split, migrate and colonize new areas ensures that the population remains resistant to disease.

The herds of bighorn sheep that call the California desert home have been growing and expanding to new mountain ranges – a good thing, considering the population is only 10% of what it once was. This is partially due to the efforts of various scientists, non-profit groups and the National Park Service, all of whom are making protection of habitat and migration pathways for bighorn sheep a priority in California. The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 established the 1.6 million acre Mojave Preserve and designated Joshua Tree and Death Valley as national parks. Recently, bighorn sheep living in the mountain island of the Cady Mountains and Afton Canyon crossed a 15-mile sea of lowlands to re-colonize the unoccupied habitat of the South Soda Mountains, an area that is partially protected by the Mojave National Preserve.

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As the herd in the South Soda Mountains grows (a good thing!), they will need to move further north into the North Soda Mountains, the Avawatz Mountains and eventually Death Valley. This will be challenging for the herd because a major highway, I-15, cuts across the lowlands between the South and North Soda Mountains. And even more problematic than the highway is the fact that the BLM is moving forward with a large-scale solar energy development project – the Soda Mountains Solar project – that would make movement to the north next to impossible for the sheep. Conservation scientists who have been trying to figure out how to help sheep to cross I-15 say that a project in this location would undermine all of their efforts to connect island mountains and maintain a healthy population of sheep desert-wide.

For almost five years, Defenders has objected to a large-scale solar facility in this area because it would eliminate the possibility of restoring connective pathways for the Mojave desert bighorn sheep population. This region is also occupied desert tortoise and kit fox habitat, and is directly adjacent to the Mojave National Preserve – one of the most significant land conservation successes in our country. When it comes to solar energy, Defenders does not take decisions regarding where projects are located lightly. We strongly support transitioning to a carbon-free electricity generation system, but only if it is “smart from the start” and avoids impacts to imperiled wildlife and special places. We critically analyze each project proposed, and the Soda Mountain Solar project doesn’t meet the standard of smart from the start. Recent news suggests that the City of Los Angeles feels similarly – the city is not interested in buying power from a project that is harmful to wildlife and the desert.

Defenders biologists have spent many hours mapping wildlife habitat data, migration corridors, seeps and springs, and other important natural resource values in the California desert. With all of the important places for conservation excluded, there is still ample already-degraded desert land appropriate for large-scale solar energy development, and that is where we should be directing projects. We have used this information to inform the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) that will establish zones for solar energy development and zones for protection of wildlife and important resources. Our hope is that the DRECP will direct future solar energy projects to much more appropriate locations than the Soda Mountains; and that the bighorn sheep will be able to expand and migrate between mountain islands as they have always done.

Finding appropriate places to develop large-scale solar energy projects is not an easy task. The BLM’s solar energy program was just the first step toward developing an approach to zoning public lands for development while ensuring that habitats and wildlife are protected.

]]>Heading east on Interstate 10 toward Blythe, California, the desert appears just as quiet, still and timeless as ever. The sweeping vistas, remote mountain ranges and wide open skies appear as they have for millennia. However, I know there is something different. Five miles north of the highway, construction has begun on the McCoy Solar Energy project, a 750-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility approved on close to 4,500 acres of undisturbed public land. This facility will produce energy that will travel along transmission lines to southern California, and is expected to supply an estimated 225,000 homes with clean electricity. This project is the third to be approved, permitted and now developed here – a region of the California desert that was designated in 2010 as a solar energy development zone by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These zones were identified to avoid scattering projects haphazardly across the landscape.

As I drive up to the construction area, my heart sinks as I think about this ancient landscape – former shores of the Colorado River – now being converted to industrial-scale solar developments. When it is planned the right way, in the right places, to have minimal impacts on wildlife and habitats, renewable energy development can be a win-win. Unfortunately, at some facilities within the BLM’s renewable energy zones, areas very important to wildlife have been affected. At the Genesis project, construction activities caused irreparable harm to cultural and archaeological resources, and legal challenges from Native American tribes are still unresolved.

Good Projects and Bad

While the BLM’s zone-based approach to renewable energy development was a good idea in theory, it does not mean that all public lands within a zone are equally appropriate for renewable energy development. For example, the McCoy solar energy facility is located on lands that were intended to be preserved in as pristine a state as possible because of the region’s ecological importance. These lands are home to patches of Sonoran desert trees such as the blue palo verde, ironwood and smoketree, which provide crucial water resources for key desert plants, imperiled wildlife like the desert tortoise, migratory songbirds such as the loggerhead shrike and warbling vireo, and many reptiles such as the large leopard lizard and western whiptail.

After visiting the construction site at the McCoy Solar Energy facility, I drive a short distance to the east where there are thousands of acres of abandoned agricultural fields. These lands, already scraped and graded, have little value to wildlife. This site – just five miles away from the McCoy facility– is exactly the kind of land where smart from the start solar development should occur. In fact, the recently approved Blythe Mesa solar project, a 485-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility, is located on the previously disturbed agricultural lands like these.

A Smarter Way Forward

Finding appropriate places to develop large-scale solar energy projects is not an easy task. The BLM’s solar energy program was the first step toward developing a landscape-scale approach to zoning our public lands for development and ensuring that important lands are set aside to protect wildlife and its habitat.

In California, there is an opportunity through the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), to further refine the solar energy development zones based on additional information about the needs of wildlife like desert tortoises, migratory birds, and desert bighorn sheep. Defenders of Wildlife’s staff have actively worked for more than six years in the DRECP process, attending countess stakeholder meetings, writing hundreds of pages of comments, organizing local support in the various desert counties and providing the state and federal agencies with recommendations and maps of areas in the desert that should be protected, as well as those that could be available for lower-impact development. Our hope is that, through the DRECP, we can protect places that support many species of wildlife, like the unique desert dry wash woodlands and the once pristine lands where McCoy is now being built. And that projects take advantage of the thousands of acres of desert lands that have already been disturbed.

]]>A solar power plant in Panoche Valley could spell disaster for endangered species

Birds are migrating sooner. A severe drought plagues California. And wildlife such as the American pika are literally running out of habitat as temperatures increase in alpine areas. As we witness the impacts of climate change on our environment and wildlife, promoting clean energy projects is a top priority for the conservation community.

As critical as it is for California and our nation to transition to clean energy, it does not mean that clean energy projects should be approved no matter what the cost is to the environment. To that end, Defenders of Wildlife and other conservation partners have been working to promote policies and planning efforts at the local, state and national levels that employ “smart from the start” principles. This means that large-scale renewable energy projects move forward with careful planning that keeps wildlife in mind, and only in places where they will not cause undue harm to wildlife, habitat and other natural resources.

The Panoche Solar Farm is the antithesis of this approach. Local, state and national environmental organizations all vigorously oppose this ill-conceived project, and several months ago, Duke Energy withdrew as a major investor. Yet the project proponents, a company called PV2 Energy, continue to aggressively push regulators for the permits they would need to build there.

Why do we care so much about the Panoche Valley? It is absolutely vital habitat for three federally endangered species: the San Joaquin kit fox, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard and the giant kangaroo rat. All three of these species have lost so much of their habitat that there are only three core areas left for them to survive and thrive in. And the Panoche Valley is the only one that remains largely intact — both of the other two have been significantly degraded by development. The Panoche Valley is their last, best chance for survival; the only thing standing between them and potential extinction. There is simply no place left for this wildlife to go.

As if the survival of these three species wasn’t enough reason for its protection, the Panoche Valley is also a refuge for many other rare species. including: mountain plover, burrowing owl, golden eagle, San Joaquin pocket mouse, tiger salamander, fairy shrimp and many more, including a number of rare plants. This diversity of plants, animals and birds thrive in the Panoche Valley because it is one of the rare places where you can still find San Joaquin Valley native grasslands.

Since 2010, Defenders has argued vigorously to the project developer that we oppose any size project in this location. We have also suggested other locations for this project, in areas that would not impact wildlife so severely. With the latest changes, the project is now smaller in size than originally planned, and has proposed to buy a large amount of land to try to offset the project’s impacts. But no amount of mitigation can remedy the fact that development on the floor of the Panoche Valley would mean the end to any hope of recovering the San Joaquin kit fox, blunt nosed leopard lizard and giant kangaroo rat for the future.

Unfortunately, those of us working for responsible renewable energy development had a setback two weeks ago. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the power purchase agreement for the project, which is the contract in which the project developer promises to deliver power to the utility. While the Commissioners approved the Panoche project agreement, they also took great pains to clarify that while they were approving the agreement using their narrow criteria, which did not include any consideration of environmental impacts, they were troubled by the project’s location. PUC Commissioner Catherine Sandoval voted against the agreement and stated that she had “become increasingly troubled about the environmental issues.”

Defenders will keep working to ensure that the imperiled wildlife of Panoche Valley is protected. We will also continue our work to encourage other energy projects to get the most out of renewable energy sources without sacrificing wildlife, wild lands, and treasured landscapes. We have been working with the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management to put policies and programs in place to do just that. By sticking with the right approach to renewable energy projects, and by rejecting destructive projects like the Panoche Solar Farm, we can quickly transition to clean, renewable energy while we protect our nation’s waters, wildlife and wild places.

I firmly believe that we can achieve both our wind development and our wildlife conservation goals. Americans should not and do not have to choose between reducing our carbon footprint and protecting our country's precious wildlife and natural resources; we can have both if we plan smart from the start.

Two years ago, I was approached by some of my colleagues at the Department of Energy (DOE). They came to me with an ask – in order to project a vision for the future of clean, renewable wind energy in America, some serious advance work was needed. Would I be a part of the team that would draw up the blueprints for a comprehensive strategy to encourage and support responsible wind energy in our country? You bet I would.

As wind development grows in places like Oregon and Idaho, upfront coordinated landscape-scale planning for both renewable energy and conservation can help us find the best places on the landscape to build wind farms while protecting and improving habitat for pronghorn and other wildlife.

And so, alongside over 150 colleagues from across a wide spectrum of national research facilities, industry, other NGOs, academia and government, we buckled down and got to work. To help DOE complete this shared vision, we set out to answer key questions — are there sufficient wind resources available to achieve 20 percent of our national electricity production from wind by 2030? What are the technology requirements? Can industry scale up to reach this goal? If so, can the grid accommodate the goal? What would the labor force look like? Where would all of this wind energy be used? How much would it cost? As a group our aim was to examine whether we can substantially reduce America’s carbon footprint by reaching the 20 percent wind benchmark, without sacrificing our broader energy goals of reliability, affordability and reduced wildlife and environmental impacts.

Making the Wind Vision a wind realization is central to the mission of my organization. You see, climate change currently presents one of the most significant threats to wildlife and their habitats, and we are already observing the effects of higher temperatures, rising sea levels, warming oceans, droughts and other changes. For this reason, the transition to clean energy in America is critical, and wind energy is a major part of that transition. As with all energy development, wind can adversely affect wildlife, whether through habitat destruction or direct collisions. And so, as a representative from the conservation community, my goal in participating in the DOE’s process was to ensure that the Wind Vision addressed the importance of simultaneously protecting and enhancing our nation’s conservation legacy while working to reach 20 percent wind and curb the greenhouse gas pollution accelerating climate change.

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Planning renewable energy smart from the start can reduce impacts to wildlife while fighting climate change.

In order to fully realize the benefits of wind energy, we must band together to see that the growth of the industry over the next several decades not only helps us to meet clean energy goals, but provides a stable set of guidelines and assurances for developers, and, most importantly, minimizes impacts on wildlife and the environment in more ways than one. I firmly believe that we can achieve both our wind development and our wildlife conservation goals. Americans should not and do not have to choose between reducing our carbon footprint and protecting our country’s precious wildlife and natural resources; we can have both if we plan smart from the start.

We have an obligation to leave our children and grandchildren not just a healthy atmosphere, but thriving populations of wildlife and conserved landscapes. So, as we have attempted to do with the DOE Wind Vision, we must assess the impacts of potential wind energy goals, and devise a roadmap that outlines the challenges in the path toward achieving those goals.

A key is to improve our understanding of the impacts of wind power on various species, understanding that can only be gained by more research. We lack important information necessary to help us know where and how to develop wind energy projects in a way that isn’t going to be problematic for wildlife. And, the more we know about potential impacts to wildlife, the more we are able to offset those impacts before and during the lifespan of wind projects. We are also in need of clear and sound regulatory processes that work better for both wildlife and for wind developers.

It has been my honor to be a part of the incredible, visionary team working to find ways to make our country and our planet a safer, healthier place for people and wildlife. Coexistence is critical. As we move forward, I will continue to seek solutions to the climate crisis that promote and facilitate responsible wind and renewable energy growth while employing proper safeguards to ensure wildlife-friendly development consistent with our country’s conservation goals and commitment to our natural heritage.

The following is the final post in a series of four blogs from Defenders’ California Desert Recorder, Krista Schlyer (you can read her first blog here, her second blog here, and her third blog here).

Curious creaturely shadows dapple the landscape of Mojave National Preserve, awash in the pale dawn hues of desert yellow and midnight blue. Wordlessly they beckon, and I am compelled to halt my journey to the Ivanpah Valley, and stand for a moment in the hushed foothills of the New York Mountains.

I have seen Joshua trees before many times, but not in this density, and something about the glittering starlight against the deep blue-black sky has bid me stop. I find a Joshua tree flanked by my two favorite constellations, Canus Major and Orion, with Sirius blazing brightly on the western horizon. This moment, so quiet. I haven’t seen another car, or person all morning. A solitary cloud floats above the mountains, and begins to turn a luminous pink, completing the quintessential desert scene, from sky to mountain to beguiling otherworldly plant life. This will be the last I see of the Joshua tree for a while. I’m heading back east tomorrow after 16 days in the desert. I will be back among my neighborhood maples, poplars and oaks, and happy to be home. But I always miss the Joshua tree. So I say goodbye, and save the sight of them in the rosy light of the rising sun–tucking it away in my space for extra-special memories.

I drive up the road and over the crest of the mountains where the Ivanpah Valley spreads before me. And the serene beauty of the morning collapses. My eye is drawn immediately to a glowing white blotch on the far side of the valley. I know right off what it is, and suddenly I grasp with sad clarity the importance of the past two weeks and the critical nature of the work Defenders of Wildlife and others are doing here in the California desert.

In a blinding flash of reflected sunlight that dominates the valley I see a possible future for the wild California desert if a good, smart, planning document for renewables is not created, and soon. The Ivanpah solar plant is the largest solar thermal plant in the world spread over 3500 acres of public land at the doorstep of the Mojave National Preserve.

LLess than 10 years ago I came to the California desert to write a story for Defenders magazine about desert tortoises and their seemingly unshakable decline. One of the people I interviewed for that story feared that solar and wind development would be the proverbial nail in the tortoise coffin. At the time the Ivanpah development had not been approved, it was still a theoretical threat on the desert horizon. Today it is a shimmering scar on the horizon of the Ivanpah Valley – a valley that lies largely within the boundaries of the Mojave preserve, one of the wildest national parks in the lower-48 states.

The Ivanpah scar runs deep. Planning documents estimated about 36 tortoises would be displaced by the development, but just a year after the plant’s initial construction, more than 150 have been found, removed, and many have died. When birds fly close to the development’s solar towers they burst into flames. These excruciating bird deaths have become so common, the solar plant’s workers have taken to calling the birds “streamers.”

Over the past few weeks I have had some feedback from people following this journey to the California desert. Most of it has been positive, expressing a strong interest in a smart approach to renewable energy. But some people have pushed back, saying we have to support solar technology, and we have to accept that birds and other animals will die in order for us to get the energy we need from a non-fossil fuel source. I don’t personally believe that is an ethically justifiable position–particularly in a society as wasteful of energy as we are. I spent some time in Las Vegas on this trip–one of those places where energy consumption vaults over the line of obscene. But more importantly, the solar-at-any-cost mentality is a false dichotomy. We don’t have to take wild land and critical habitat to develop sufficient solar, wind and geothermal energy. We have enormous amounts of land already degraded where large-scale renewable energy can be responsibly sited.

With climate change already altering our natural systems and impacting wildlife we must be prepared to use cleaner energy sources. Solar is a good technology. It has the potential to revolutionize our relationship with energy; but the ultimate judge of any technology is how it is used. For solar and other resources this means ensuring that it is developed in areas with low conflicts to important natural resources and operated in a way that minimizes impacts. We must be particularly concerned about development i the wild desert. This is a unique place that provides the last habitat for desert tortoises, the last open flyways for warblers and raptors and waterfowl, the last viable corridors for bighorn sheep and other wildlife in search of suitable habitat in an era of climate change.

Places like the Silurian Valley and Soda Mountains, the Desert Tortoise Natural Area, flyways in the Rose Valley and near Butterbredt Springs, the Portal Ridge and Juniper Flats–these places are the last of their kind. Their value for wild things and humankind cannot be measured, not in dollars, not in megawatts. The people I have met with over the past few weeks in the California desert spend their lives trying to save special places and vulnerable species–they are all heroes who deserve to be heard. It isn’t too much to ask that our very real need to switch to renewable energy be thoughtful. Our society has lost so much already from not thinking clearly about the impacts of energy extraction and consumption–now is the opportunity for revolutionary change, a paradigm shift in our relationship with energy.

The field of medicine, passed down from the time of Hippocrates, adheres to a guiding philosophy in its care for the human body. First do no harm. It’s time we adopted this philosophy to guide our relationship to our planetary body.

Yes all development and industry has costs. But a thoughtful society can minimize costs. Where renewable energy is concerned the answers require us to work together to find the right places, including degraded lands and infill development; replace old wind turbines with newer, more efficient designs, and hold ourselves accountable for becoming more conscious about our energy use.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan can be a vehicle for mapping out a smart approach to renewables in the California desert. In draft form it has gotten many things right: conservation of the Chuckwalla Bench, support for restoration of the Salton Sea, much development focused on degraded lands. But it also sacrifices some important places that should not be sacrificed.

Its authors can find instruction from the grave mistakes of the Ivanpah Valley. The plan can be made better and the DRECP can be an instrument of a new renewable green Hippocratic ethic–first do no harm.

Krista Schlyer is a photographer and writer and longtime collaborator of Defenders of Wildlife. She is the author of Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, and winner of the 2014 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club

The following is the third post in a series of four blogs from Defenders’ California Desert Recorder, Krista Schlyer (you can read her first blog here and her second blog here).

I woke that morning to the smell of rain. A desert long-denied, in the throes of an historic drought, was breathing its creosote-scented sigh of relief. In the eastern United States, where I live, rain doesn’t provoke an olfactory response. It is just wet, sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet. But in the desert it’s rare and memorable, and always accompanied by desert plants’ rendition of the Ode to Joy. Once you smell desert rain you never forget it. And for me it is more than enough motivation to face a 4 am wake-up call and a battering cold morning wind.

I drive to a ridgeline that overlooks a vast valley formed by the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, the Tehachapi and El Paso mountains. I’m here for one reason–tortoises.

My project is broader than that, much, much broader. In two weeks I’m trying to capture the beauty of the California desert, and the impact that energy development–wind, solar and geothermal–are having on the region. The project is an assignment from Defenders of Wildlife, and it was scheduled now because there is a major planning process in the works that will determine the future of the fragile desert and its creatures.

But today I’m focusing on one particular creature–the desert tortoise. If there is a poster-child for the potential and already realized devastation energy development in inappropriate places could bring to the desert, the tortoise is it. These hardy, desert-adapted creatures have suffered a 40-year decline due to human development of various sorts. They have lost 90 percent of their population despite being a protected species for most of that time.

The Desert Tortoise Natural Area is a stronghold for tortoises. There are far more in this preserve than in the surrounding areas, even those designated critical habitat by US Fish and Wildlife Service. Because the tortoise preserve is so well protected (it even has a fence surrounding it to thwart off-road vehicles), it has maintained a surprising diversity of desert plants—more than 230 species!—many of them the yummy forbs that form the basis of the tortoise diet.

The value of this location was illuminated for me yesterday during a visit with Dr. Kristin Berry, one of the nation’s leading experts on desert tortoises. Dr. Berry has worked for tortoise conservation for 40 years, and much of what we know about their habits, needs and threats is due to her research. And the Desert Tortoise Natural Area has been a focal point for study and conservation of the species.

Despite the essential nature of this preserve the government is considering designating this region a location for large-scale solar production, which would scrape the land of vegetation and displace or kill the tortoises here. But it’s not a done-deal. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP)—a draft of which is currently open for public comment—is a tool for deciding future land use in the immense California desert area. A responsible DRECP is desperately needed and has the potential to map out a conservation vision for this unique wild region. Without a plan, energy development will proceed ad-hoc, which has not served the wild desert well in the past decade.

But the plan as it stands does not adequately protect wildlife and the survival of wild lands and tortoise hangs in the balance. For decades these charismatic creatures, icons of the Southwest, have been forced onto smaller and smaller pieces of viable habitat and faced ongoing threats from human introduced predators and disease. And now they face the chaos of climate change, which is shifting the seasonal arrival of their foods and exacerbating drought. Climate change is also bringing a market for renewable energy development to their home. We usually label renewables as “green” energy, but like oil and gas and coal, when done on an industrial scale in the wrong places, it has the power to devastate the land. Solar scrapes the land bare, solar and wind and geothermal bring powerlines, new roads and invasive plants, and can drain scarce water resources. An added complication with renewables is the impact of climate change hanging over our heads.

Under this pressure we can forget the costs of the wrong kind of development and fail to see the alternatives right in front of us: energy efficiency and conservation; industrial scale renewable energy development on already degraded lands; and small-scale energy production in urban areas, on rooftops, roads and parking lots.

The energy systems of the future will be distributed power, micro-grids, roof-top solar, project sited on degraded lands, cutting-edge efficiency, and energy conservation. The question is, will we realize this before we needlessly sacrifice the desert and its vulnerable wildlife?

Krista Schlyer is a photographer and writer and longtime collaborator of Defenders of Wildlife. She is the author of Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, and winner of the 2014 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club. Follow Krista’s California Desert tour on Twitter @kristaschlyer and on Instagram at krista_schlyer.

The following is the second in a series of four blogs from Defenders’ California Desert Recorder, Krista Schlyer (you can read her first blog here). Stay tuned for updates as she continues her #DefendOurDesert tour, and follow along via social media.

The sun has a special relationship with the desert. It showers attention on this land in intense, killing heat, a kind of fiery stare only the heartiest of wild creatures can endure. But it also rewards the desert with some of the most soul-breaking beauty that a mind can manage, a beauty so profound it hurts your heart to witness it, like it’s going to explode your chest with the generosity of life.

Last night in the Silurian Valley in California I felt that sweet pain as I watched clouds in the broad valley amphitheater fade from white, to yellow, to pale blue-gray, and just as I was packing up my cameras for the night, two lightning bolts of blindingly bright salmon-pink shot like comets across the sky. The land itself turned rosy in the reflected glow of the radiant clouds.

There are many who dismiss the desert–I’ve heard it often. It’s just a desert, barren, lifeless. Nothing could be further from the truth, a truth shouted from the Avawatz Mountain peaks that tower above the Silurian Valley; declared indisputably in the thundering of bighorn hooves against rock; and whispered in the branches of creosote, and beneath the ground in the burrows of desert squirrels, lizards and tortoises.

The value of this land is also apparent in a roomful of desert dwellers gathered to give feedback on the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), which will map out the location of future energy development in the California Desert. Perhaps 400 people turned out in Victorville on October 29, and the majority of them spoke a simple, clear message— large-scale solar, wind and geothermal development do not belong in many areas in the wild and fragile desert. This kind of development belongs on rooftops and degraded lands, in areas where it won’t impact wildlife and the special places in the desert.

There are areas of the desert where renewable energy development can be appropriate, but it doesn’t belong in the Silurian Valley, or the Soda Mountains to the west. These lands lie on the southern doorstep of Death Valley National Park and they form the northern boundary of Mojave National Preserve. They do not lie within either national park unit, an odd omission. Silurian and Soda are both every bit a national park by merit. And because they were left out of the designation, conservation of these wild lands takes on a special importance.

These lands provide critical linkages between Death Valley and Mojave for wild species like bighorn sheep, mountain lions and bobcats as they travel between islands of protected habitat. Never has this been more important than now, as an historic drought brings home the reality of climate change. Animals will have to be able to move if they are going to survive the changes we’ve set in motion, and we have to make sure they have protected lands and protected migration corridors to be able to do that.

The fate of these precious places hangs in the balance, as they are proposed as possible locations for future solar and wind energy development. Energy development, whether you call it green or not, is still development. It requires scraping the ground, building roads and transmission lines, water consumption and traffic for maintenance. It will alter wild desert forever and the loss in this particular area would be incalculable, as articulated by one desert resident in the Victorville meeting: “When you break the ground in the desert, it’s permanently broken.”

A cadre of desert advocates are giving their every ounce of energy to make sure that doesn’t happen here, including David Lamfrom of the National Parks Conservation Association, who put the situation like this: “This is one of the truly crucial issues of our time. We are talking about the future of the desert.”

The issue at hand is not whether we pursue renewable energy, but where we get it. Do we get our energy from rooftops and degraded lands–or from the last remaining wilderness and critical wildlife habitat?

For creatures like the imperiled desert tortoise, which has suffered a 40-year decline due to human development, survival on this planet swings on a renewable energy pendulum. The DRECP is the instrument that will decide the fate of the desert and its creatures, from bighorn, to tortoise, to wilderness-starved human being.

We have a great opportunity to set ourselves on an ethical renewable energy course, and so we need to make sure that we do it right. Once the decision is made, there’s no going back. The DRECP must take into account critical places like the Silurian Valley, Soda Mountains and others and make sure that those are not the areas where development occurs.

I’ve been traveling the California desert for a week so far, on an assignment for Defenders of Wildlife to document the beauty of the desert and the need to conserve this place in light of pressure for energy development. The purpose is to help others, especially those who would dismiss the desert, see what desert dwellers see: the sun setting in Silurian Valley; a baby desert bighorn back-lit by the rising sun; the gentle morning light falling on a drought-haggard cactus in the Soda Mountains. To understand the desert is to love the desert, and what we love, we protect.

Krista Schlyer is a photographer and writer and longtime collaborator of Defenders of Wildlife. She is the author of Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, and winner of the 2014 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club. Follow Krista’s California Desert tour on Twitter @kristaschlyer and on Instagram at krista_schlyer.

The following is the first in a series of four blogs from Defenders’ California Desert Recorder, Krista Schlyer. Stay tuned for updates as she continues her #DefendOurDesert tour, and follow along via social media.

In the foothills of the Coso Mountains, I stand with Hector Villalobos gazing down onto the beautiful Rose Valley in the California Desert. The vista spreads west to the eastern slope of the towering Sierra Nevada, and aside from Highway 395 and a barely visible utility corridor, it is quiet, wild, and breathtaking. But it’s what you don’t see here that has drawn me, at the start of a two-week photo tour for Defenders of Wildlife.

Beneath the pale green, obsidian speckled ground lies a labyrinthine matrix of tunnels, the unseen but essential underground home of the imperiled Mohave ground squirrel. Also unseen are the complex geological underpinnings of this valley, a dynamic mixture of water, heat and fissures, that in some places presses water toward the surface as springs and small lakes–which are essential to birds traveling the flyway through this arid valley.

“This is a very special place,” Villalobos muses quietly. He would know— he used to manage it. Villalobos recently retired his post with the Bureau of Land Management for this piece of the California Desert Conservation Area. He knows the deep values of this place, and the pressures that are bearing down on it— and there is worry in his voice.

This is why I’m here—development pressures bearing down on the Mohave ground squirrel and fatigued bird-travelers, as well as other wild creatures and special places in the California, Mojave and Sonoran deserts. I’m meandering a vast California desert complex, from Death Valley to the Salton Sea and the Mexican border, to document some of the wild places and critical wildlife habitat, and to help convey the importance of making smart choices about energy development–specifically renewables like solar, wind and geothermal.

Defenders has been working as a voice for wildlife in a process that will help guide the future of renewable energy development in the region. This planning process, called the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), takes some much-needed steps toward guiding development on already degraded lands, but it falls far short in some places, and one of those places is the Rose Valley.

Pressure is mounting for development of geothermal, solar and possibly wind generation here, despite the Valley’s importance to wildlife, and despite the incredible loss it would be as a scenic valley on the doorstep of one of America’s largest and most beautiful national park—Death Valley.

Late in the day I sit on a high rocky ledge overlooking Little Lake, watching thousands of migrating waterfowl, including northern shovelers, grebes and coots. As I listen to the birds’ boisterous chattering and watch them dive and dabble, I recall the devastation a century ago when Los Angeles’ thirst for water drained the nearby Owens Lake, sending reverberations throughout this valley, for birds, people and the economy. Owens Valley will never be the same, but we can still make the right choices for Little Lake, Rose Valley, and what remains of the beautiful Owens Valley, in the gentle shadow of the Sierra Nevada.

Krista Schlyer is a photographer and writer and longtime collaborator of Defenders of Wildlife. She is the author of Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, and winner of the 2014 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club. Stay tuned for more from Krista’s California Desert tour. Find her on Twitter at kristaschlyer and on Instagram at krista_schlyer.

]]>California’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) is here! The draft environmental documents, totaling more than 8,000 pages, were posted online last Tuesday after an announcement event in Palm Springs that included Secretary Sally Jewell, Senator Barbara Boxer, Representative Raul Ruiz, Representative Grace Napolitano, California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird, California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas, and Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit. The speakers touted the draft plan as a landmark federal-state partnership and a huge step forward for both renewable energy development and land and wildlife conservation.

The draft DRECP is the result of a six year federal-state planning process across 22.5 million acres of a public and private land in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of southern California. And it has been a uniquely collaborative effort among four lead agencies—Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Energy Commission and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife—communities, seven counties and multiple other stakeholder groups, including Defenders. The overarching goal of this collaboration is to identify the most appropriate places in the desert for renewable energy development, while conserving areas important for wildlife, wilderness, recreation and other values. The planning process is an unparalleled opportunity for citizens, counties and other stakeholders to help determine the clean energy future of the desert and our communities, and ultimately of the West.

Planning ahead for solar energy development in the desert Southwest can allow us to develop solar projects in the right places while protecting essential habitat for the Desert tortoise.

Defenders has been eagerly awaiting the release of this draft plan, as we have been working on renewable energy issues in the California desert since 2007. The California desert has a major part to play to help combat the impacts of climate change, clean up air pollution and provide clean energy jobs. But while the desert is important to a clean energy future, it is also a special environment that must be protected—this vast landscape is home to diverse biological communities; recreational, historical and cultural lands; scenic and wild places; and other valuable areas.

There have been many lessons learned in the development of large-scale renewable energy facilities, including painful ones from poorly planned and located projects. But there have also been opportunities to re-purpose previously disturbed lands for renewable energy generation. Over the years, we have repeatedly called for landscape-scale planning in the California deserts. In terms of renewable energy development, this kind of planning takes entire regions, not just localized, individual areas, into consideration in order to avoid unnecessary harm to pristine desert lands and the vulnerable wildlife that call these lands home. We are hopeful that the DRECP will build on this concept to direct clean renewable energy to areas that will have less impact on wildlife, including the threatened desert tortoise, Mohave ground squirrel, desert bighorn sheep, flat-tailed horned lizard, and golden eagles instead of developing projects in sensitive areas, and that it will provide long-lasting conservation for many of our unique desert species and special places.

Addressing Climate Change

California is a leader when it comes to addressing the impacts of climate change. The DRECP aims to address the impacts of climate change on plants and animals by ensuring sufficient habitat conservation that will allow plants and animals to move and adapt to the changing desert climate. The DRECP will also incorporate planning that would help to reduce, or mitigate, climate change-related damage that has already been done. Deployment of wind energy, geothermal and land-based solar energy projects are one slice of the entire climate change mitigation strategy for California. By directing these projects to lower-conflict lands, the DRECP provides an opportunity to integrate renewable energy into the electrical grid efficiently and effectively.

The Work Begins

This solar array in Fort Carson, Colorado was built atop a closed landfill. That’s renewable energy smart from the start!

Defenders supports the “smart from the start” framework for planning that a final DRECP is intended to achieve, and we are hopeful for long-lasting habitat conservation and efficient development of renewable sources of energy. However, we understand that the document is a draft and that it will require close scrutiny to ensure it will achieve its lofty goals. Specifically, Defenders staff will be analyzing and commenting on the plan to ensure that the conservation strategy is based on the most recent and up-to-date conservation science and will provide long-term protection and recovery for our imperiled desert wildlife. Already we have identified important wildlife areas left unprotected in the plan and we will be advocating for their inclusion. Specifically our biologists will be analyzing the benefits of the plan for species like desert tortoise, desert bighorn sheep, Mohave ground squirrel, burrowing owl and golden eagle. Defenders policy staff will also looking for real incentives for developers to direct projects to parts of the desert where they will have less negative impact on surrounding ecosystems and wildlife.

What Next?

Now is the time to engage on the draft DRECP and share your thoughts about renewable energy development and habitat conservation in the Mojave Desert. To view the draft plan and for more information on workshops and public meetings, visit the official DRECP website. Additionally, DRECP has partnered with Conservation Biology Institute to provide an online map service for those who would like to zoom into particular areas or species habitats.

Defenders will be diving into the details of the draft plan over the next couple of months and will update the blog with key issues we are addressing as they arise. It will require input from diverse groups and stakeholders to arrive at a plan that reflects the values and needs of the unique California deserts. It is now our turn to inform and shape the future of the desert and of clean renewables. We must ensure that renewable energy does not cause additional unnecessary harm to pristine desert lands and species habitats, but instead is implemented efficiently in the right places.

Stephanie Dashiell is the California Representative at Defenders of Wildlife

Just as we work hard to ensure that renewable energy generation plants are built “Smart from the Start,” Defenders is working to ensure that these new transmission corridors are also designed right and traverse our treasured landscapes with as little impact as possible on those lands, the habitats they encompass, and the wildlife that rely on them.

]]>Quick, how does electricity get from an Arizona solar plant to a Phoenix office park? If you answered “power lines,” you’re right! As we build more wind and solar power throughout the West, we will need to think carefully about how to get that renewable electricity to the towns and cities where it’s needed. In the video below, I take a tour of Maricopa County, west of Phoenix, where a lot of solar energy development is happening or being proposed. On the tour, we looked at alternatives for planning new or expanded power line, or transmission, corridors to move energy from the solar plants being constructed throughout the area. In the rest of this post, I’ll describe what Defenders is doing in Arizona to help ensure that, these transmission corridors get planned in a way that is “smart from the start,” just as we do with the renewable energy projects that they are meant to connect with.

Theoretical paths for new transmission lines to link renewable energy generation to markets.

Often called “the largest and most complex machine ever built,” the American electrical grid is called upon to meet many needs. Despite some of its parts being as many as 130 years old, it must deliver its electricity reliably 100% of the time to customers who expect that flipping a switch will always turn the lights on. It must march long distances carrying high-voltage loads in thick cables, and then step down into the fractal network of distribution lines that bring power to houses and businesses. It must be repaired quickly after storms. And it must do all of this while operating under a patchwork of ownership and regulatory structures, without any centralized planning authority.

As our population grows and our energy production shifts from fossil fuels (particularly coal) to renewable energy, our demands upon the grid will grow and change as well. Now, in addition to many other needs, we need new connections to bring solar energy from the deserts and wind from the Midwestern plains to the cities of the coasts. Just as we work hard to ensure that renewable energy generation plants are built “Smart from the Start,” Defenders is working to ensure that these new transmission corridors are also designed right and traverse our treasured landscapes with as little impact as possible on those lands, the habitats they encompass, and the wildlife that rely on them.

Javelina (a species of peccary) are an important prey species for mountain lions that use desert washes and thick vegetation as travel corridors.

How Transmission Corridors Impact Wildlife

Transmission corridors can affect animals in a number of ways. Some species, like desert bighorn sheep and javelina, are impacted by roads and increased human development that create barriers in their migratory and travel routes. Part of the careful planning of energy corridors for these kinds of wide-roaming species involves incorporating protected crossing structures that provide safe places to get over, under, or around roads, pylons, and other obstacles. Other animals, like young Sonoran desert tortoise, are vulnerable to increased predation by birds like ravens that use new transmission lines as perches to extend their hunting ranges and feed on tortoise eggs and young. To minimize this threat to the tortoise, it’s important to place new power lines along already-existing corridors so that ravens aren’t introduced to new areas. Some rare animals, like Mojave fringe-toed lizard, are vulnerable in their small patches of unique habitat. Corridor planning must take care to avoid these habitats. Finally, some critters with very specialized habitat needs, like Arizona’s great diversity of amphibians, may be impacted by construction or operations. Corridor planning must specify that operators use good design and management practices – such as setting poles on either side of a dry desert riverbed to hang the power line over it rather than building in it, or providing ample culvert crossings under roads in sensitive areas – that will help avoid impacts to these species.

Desert Bighorn Sheep migrate long distances and are sensitive to linear disturbances that disrupt their migration routes if not properly mitigated.

Smart Siting in Arizona and Across the West

Defenders is vigilant about working to minimize impacts to wildlife. In Arizona, Defenders is an active participant in the Arizona Solar Working Group, a collaboration between conservation and wildlife organizations, renewable energy advocates, utilities, and solar developers working toward a sustainable energy future. The group was formed to provide input and to make recommendations to the Arizona Bureau of Land Management as it developed its innovative Restoration Design Energy Project (RDEP), and has since turned its attention to helping solve transmission siting challenges in the state.

Now, we are working together to provide recommendations to the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service as they review corridors designated for future energy transmission across public lands in 11 Western states. Originally proposed in 2009, these corridors did not do enough to connect renewable (rather than fossil fuel-generated) energy to towns and cities, did not provide enough opportunity for public input on their construction, and did not adequately analyze potential impacts on wildlife and the environment. In response, Defenders joined fellow conservation organizations and one county in challenging the designation of the originally proposed corridors. The litigation resulted in a settlement agreement, in which the agencies will review the corridors to address these issues.

Right now in Arizona, the working group is focusing on making recommendations for three corridors that are likely to connect with the strong solar resource in the southwestern part of the state. These include identifying a new route to replace the corridor roughly connecting Phoenix and Las Vegas that was deemed “of concern” in the 2012 settlement agreement, and analyzing options to improve corridors along I-10 and I-8 heading west from Phoenix to southern California. Defenders is using GIS expertise to provide the group with mapping of wildlife movements and habitats to ensure that our recommendations conserve Arizona’s unique desert wildlife across the landscape.

West-Wide Energy Corridors in Arizona, showing focus of Arizona Solar Working Group in making recommendations to the USFS and BLM.

Flying High in Arizona

While there’s a lot to learn from conservation tools like GIS mapping and migration linkage design studies, it’s an amazing experience to see it all from the air. This past February I had the opportunity to join members of the Working Group on an overflight tour sponsored by Lighthawk and volunteer pilot Will Worthington.

We explored routes north and west of Phoenix to look at possible alternative alignments for a “corridor of concern” and saw the rivers, mountains, and lakes that define that area. Then we headed south over a big swath of Renewable Energy Development Areas (REDAs), identified through RDEP as areas likely to be low-conflict for solar energy development but in need of transmission capacity to stimulate development. Finally we visited the area southwest of the city where wildlife corridors connect rugged mountain ranges that are ringed by river corridors, alfalfa fields, and millenia of human development.

It is no easy challenge to thread a new transmission line into and across this existing patchwork of human and wild spaces. Nonetheless, it’s a challenge that Defenders is glad to work on solving so that our wildlife heritage is protected even as we develop and transmit our valuable renewable resources.

The author joined members of the Arizona Solar Working Group on a Lighthawk overflight tour of potential options for energy corridors and solar development in Maricopa County west of Phoenix on a beautiful February day.

While these projects most definitely directly impact a species that has been identified as threatened and is dependent on the habitat where they would be built, Silver State South and Stateline’s approval is most troubling for a bigger reason. You see, this isn’t just an issue for the Ivanpah Valley. Developers and agencies need to be conscious of how and where they plan energy projects all across the country. They need to look at renewable energy planning with a landscape-wide lens, understanding that building in the right places and making an effort to minimize environmental impacts from the start are essential.

]]>Silver State South and Stateline Solar are not the kind of wildlife-friendly renewable energy projects we need

As you drive on Interstate Highway 15 between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and look across the Ivanpah Valley, you can see the small town of Primm, a golf course, some power lines and a massive solar project, the Brightsource Ivanpah project. But, it’s what you can’t see from the highway that makes the Ivanpah Valley so significant—thousands of desert tortoises hunkered down in their burrows, or slowly making their way along washes in search of food or a friend.

Back in November, we wrote about the cumulative impacts of energy development and infrastructure projects on sensitive desert ecosystems in the Mojave. California and Nevada’s Ivanpah Valley is one of the most important areas of suitable habitat in the Mojave desert for the beleaguered and threatened desert tortoise. It has also gradually become a hotbed for solar energy development, so much so that the region’s ability to support wildlife is being compromised. This is especially problematic for tortoises which depend on the valley as a critical link between conservation and recovery areas. Unfortunately, the tortoises’ future here and throughout the Northeastern Recovery Unit (a designated tortoise recovery area which contains the Ivanpah Valley) is in jeopardy.

Planning ahead for solar energy development in the desert Southwest can allow us to develop solar projects in the right places while protecting essential habitat for the Desert tortoise.

Just a little more than two weeks ago, Brightsource “turned on” their Ivanpah Solar Project with great fanfare. This project destroyed more than 3,500 acres – nearly 5 ½ square miles – of desert tortoise habitat. And, while the Brightsource Solar project had significant negative impacts on desert tortoises in the Ivanpah Valley, it seems the worst may be yet to come. Last week the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved two large, utility-scale solar projects that would destroy more than 4,000 more acres of desert tortoise habitat in the valley. Despite Defenders’ recommendations and cautions about the environmental impacts of the Silver State and Stateline Solar projects, the BLM ignored our – and others’ – protests and decided instead to roll the dice on the fate of the tortoise.

The combined Silver State South and Stateline Solar projects are examples of the kind of renewable energy development that does not take wildlife into account, or properly plan to have the least impact possible on imperiled wildlife; they are a body blow to the threatened tortoises and habitat in the region. The Stateline Solar Project is located immediately adjacent to the Brightsource Solar Project, and the Silver State South Solar Project is located just up the highway in Nevada, beside yet another project, the Silver State North Solar Project. When these two projects are added to those that already exist, the result will essentially be an impenetrable wall of development cutting across the heart of the Ivanapah Valley.

Because the Ivanpah Valley is largely isolated from other recovery units in the region, it is critical that tortoise populations in the northern part of the Ivanpah Valley are able to reach those in the southern part, and that landscape-scale habitat linkages connecting to the other recovery units are not jeopardized. The locations of Silver State South and Stateline Solar projects would interrupt these linkages, degrade and fragment habitat, and displace or kill up to 2,115 tortoises. Especially problematic in this case is the fact that these projects are planned in an area known to be particularly vibrant habitat with healthy tortoises. Despite Defenders’ repeated communications to the developer, First Solar, about the impacts of these projects on the tortoise and other wildlife, the developers failed to relocate the projects to lands already degraded or less critical to the animals.

Silver State South and Stateline Solar would destroy over 4,000 more acres of habitat critical to the survival of the desert tortoise.

And so, Defenders has now had no choice but to turn to the courts to reject the BLM’s approvals of these projects because they violate the protections given to tortoises under the Endangered Species Act. That is, no project should be approved if it is going to compromise the future of a threatened species.

While these projects most definitely directly impact a species that has been identified as threatened and is dependent on the habitat where they would be built, Silver State South and Stateline’s approval is most troubling for a bigger reason. You see, this isn’t just an issue for the Ivanpah Valley. Developers and agencies need to be conscious of how and where they plan energy projects all across the country. They need to look at renewable energy planning with a landscape-wide lens, understanding that building in the right places and making an effort to minimize environmental impacts from the start are essential.

Defenders of Wildlife supports renewable energy development and believes that we have a real opportunity to develop clean, sustainable sources like solar and wind – but we mustn’t do it at the cost of our treasured lands and wildlife. As our Director of California Programs Kim Delfino said, “we don’t have to choose between protecting imperiled wildlife and encouraging clean, renewable energy. All we have to do is plan smart from the start and move proposed projects to low-conflict areas, something the BLM and the Service failed to do when they approved the Silver State South and Stateline Solar projects in the Ivanpah Valley.”

Courtney Sexton is a Communications Associate for Defenders of Wildlife

On Tuesday night in his State of the Union speech, President Obama said that 2014 will be a “year of action.” We agree. By tackling climate change and implementing policies that help us develop responsible renewable energy, we can truly ensure that we preserve our important wildlife heritage for future generations.

]]>On Tuesday night in his State of the Union speech, President Obama said that 2014 will be a “year of action.” We agree. By tackling climate change and implementing policies that help us develop responsible renewable energy, we can truly ensure that we preserve our important wildlife heritage for future generations.

Renewable energy sources, like wind, can help combat the impacts of climate change.

The latest report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission states that renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydropower, accounted for 37.16% of all new domestic electrical generating capacity installed during calendar-year 2013. The more than 5,200 megawatts of new renewable energy we installed last year will avoid an estimated 9.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel electricity—equivalent to taking almost 1.8 million passenger cars off the road each year![1] The continued growth of the renewable energy sector reduces our reliance on fossil fuels and is an essential component of reducing the future impacts of climate change. In the last two years alone, we have seen the following initiatives from the Obama administration to help reduce climate change and support renewable energy:

March 2011—President Obama created a Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, which put us on a path towards energy self-reliance and supported crucial research into innovative energy technologies, including in renewable energy, energy storage, and energy efficiency.

March 2013—The President called on Congress to create an Energy Security Trust to use oil and gas revenues to fund breakthrough R&D for the development of clean energy transportation alternatives, an essential step to getting our cars and trucks off of fossil fuels.

May and June 2013—Obama released two presidential memoranda on infrastructure and renewable energy transmission planning, directing his agencies to streamline permitting of priority projects while at the same time requiring that agencies develop policies and procedures to avoid, minimize, and mitigate environmental impacts from infrastructure development.

June 2013—In his Climate Action Plan, the President directed the agencies to take substantial steps to cut energy use and increase renewable energy production, including permitting 20,000 MW of renewable energy on public lands by 2020 and directing that federal agencies get 20% of their electricity needs from renewables by 2020.

January 2014—Energy Secretary Moniz and President Obama announced the creation of the Quadrennial Energy Review. Modeled after a similar Defense Department initiative of long standing, the QER brings together representatives from a broad swath of agencies and offices with jurisdiction over various parts of the energy regulation, production, siting and delivery process. The first QER review will focus on “America’s infrastructure for transmitting, storing and delivering energy,” acknowledging the nationwide need to improve our aging infrastructure. This will help us meet a variety of challenges, including resilience to climate change and the need to integrate renewable energy into the electric grid. The first report is due to the President in January 2015.

The solar industry association has responded to the exciting opportunities in the energy policy world by launching its own campaign to celebrate its 40th anniversary: “Shout Out for Solar,” taking place on January 24th. The wind industry association is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and has announced its support of the Quadrennial Energy Review plan.

Planning ahead for solar energy development in the desert Southwest can allow us to develop solar projects in the right places while protecting essential habitat for the Desert tortoise.

How do all these high-level policy and industry initiatives affect Defenders’ day-to-day work? Defenders is leading the charge in taking advantage of these opportunities. We meet on a near-daily basis with members of the Administration at the White House, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and other agencies. We talk to decision makers to make certain that wildlife and conservation take their places front and center in the conversation about how our nation develops its renewable resources. We partner with companies, other conservation organizations and states to find areas of agreement so that we can advance policies and on-the-ground solutions for developing important renewable energy projects in a way that protects and preserves wildlife species and their habitats.

For example, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service are working together to plan new transmission and infrastructure corridors that we need to bring renewable wind energy from gusty places like the Great Plains to big cities like Chicago and Seattle. We are working with them so that we fully understand the potential wildlife impacts from those corridors and that they are designated in the places where wildlife and natural resources will be least affected. We do not have to make a choice between wildlife and renewable energy. Our animals, plants, and landscapes are part of what makes our country unique. We must be certain that our renewable energy is planned in a way to help our wildlife adapt to climate change.

Building on the advances from 2013 is an important next step, and we are enthusiastic about our own “year of action” ahead. We look forward to taking advantage of all the opportunities that present themselves to ensure that renewable energy and wildlife stand together as priorities for the nation.

]]>http://www.defendersblog.org/2014/01/2014-year-action-wildlife-responsible-renewable-energy/feed/2Lost and Found in the Deserthttp://www.defendersblog.org/2014/01/lost-found-desert/
http://www.defendersblog.org/2014/01/lost-found-desert/#commentsMon, 06 Jan 2014 14:50:38 +0000http://www.defendersblog.org/?p=25308 by Eliza Cava

Building solar projects in the right places can mean a clean source of energy AND minimal impacts on vulnerable wildlife species and their habitat. We're excited to see that this project is working to do exactly that!

I stepped out of my small white rental car into the chattery quiet of the October desert. The sun blazed overhead. A lizard skittered across the rutted dirt road in front of me. The leaves on the creosote bushes shimmered in the light breeze. I climbed up on the hood of the car to look around – there was no reception on my phone and the battery on the laptop holding my scanned maps was draining fast. There was no question about it: I was lost in the Sonoran Desert.

Fortunately, I wasn’t that lost. I was exactly where I had intended to go, except I had read the maps wrong. Instead of driving into the center of the proposed site for the utility-scale solar energy project Maricopa Solar Park (located on public lands about 35 miles southwest of Phoenix), I had inadvertently crossed into the Sonoran Desert National Monument about two miles from my destination. What a difference those two miles made. In the National Monument, the road was a rutted single-track, with lizards and birds darting in and out of the dark green creosote bushes and across numerous dry washes. To either side of the road the soil was intact and the land was free of litter. I may be a DC-based policy analyst most of the time, but even I can identify a nice patch of high-quality habitat when I see it!

Fast-forward half an hour. I am back in the car and headed towards the proposed Maricopa Solar site (having exchanged greetings and a chocolate bar for some directions and an extra bottle of water with a crew foreman at a construction site just outside the National Monument boundary). The Italian-based project developer, Marisol Energy 2 LLC, has applied for the right to develop on a 1,730-acre patch of land—most of which is as different as could be from the corner of the Sonoran Desert National Monument I had found myself in just a short time before. Where earlier the creosote bushes had been green and leafy, here they were brown and denuded, showing signs of heavy cattle grazing. Numerous tire tracks crisscrossed the soil beyond the road beds, and I was passed repeatedly on the dirt roads by heavy trucks carrying water, construction materials, and other loads to the several homesteads, landfills, and air strips that border the site. An occasional bullet hole-ridden box off the edge of the road was evidence of recreational shooting, and high-tension power lines hummed overhead.

About three-quarters of the Maricopa site overlaps with a Renewable Energy Development Area (REDA), making this the first utility-scale solar application to be filed under Arizona’s innovative Restoration Design Energy Program (RDEP)—an initiative we have supported and worked to help shape from its inception. RDEP identified areas throughout the state of Arizona, on public and private lands, where the effects of renewable energy development on sensitive resources would be minimized. This particular parcel was actually nominated for inclusion as a REDA by outside groups, including some of Defenders’ partners in the region, as a disturbed or degraded site likely suitable for solar development. In addition to its roads and close proximity to other developments, the REDA is on very flat land, making it unlikely to attract Sonoran desert tortoises, which prefer the rocky uplands nearby. It is less than three miles from the Pinal West power substation, and the developer should be able to run their transmission line along the existing high-voltage infrastructure corridor rather than requiring additional land to build it on.

In short, we think this REDA is probably a low-risk place for solar development, and we’re very excited that the developer chose to submit their application for it and that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has moved ahead with processing it under RDEP. We will continue to work with the BLM, the developer, and our partners to ensure that wildlife impacts in the area are avoided, minimized, and mitigated to the maximum extent possible. And I don’t plan on getting lost when I go back to visit.

Within the Mojave, the Ivanpah Valley has been identified as a critical link between conservation areas for one of the region’s most endangered inhabitants, the desert tortoise. At the same time, the Ivanpah Valley is also under mounting pressure from development of many kinds, including such land use impacts as multiple high-acreage renewable energy projects, electricity and gas transmission lines, a wastewater treatment project, airport and a high-speed rail line.

]]>Multiple solar energy projects can be too much for one region to handle

On the blistering hot, sun-drenched surface, deserts seem like an ideal place for solar energy development. The climate in such regions makes them inhospitable to humans and the arid land is largely unusable for agricultural endeavors.

The fragile habitat of the Mojave Desert.

But if one looks close enough to see beyond immediately perceptible utilitarian purposes, it becomes quite readily apparent that desert landscapes have much more to offer than simply sun, sand and cracked land. The Mojave, for example, located in southern California and southern Nevada, harbors some of the country’s greatest biodiversity. Until the relatively new increase and expansion of renewable energy projects, the Mojave region has remained in largely natural condition. In fact, in a recent study, The Nature Conservancy found that 87 percent of the lands in the Mojave Desert have high conservation value, making them among the least disturbed ecoregions in the U.S.

As these study results suggest, despite human intolerance of the climate in the region, many species of wildlife thrive in the extreme temperatures and geographical features that characterize the Mojave. The desert tortoise, horned lizard, Mojave fringe-toed lizard, golden eagle, Mojave ground squirrel, bighorn sheep and several riparian birds are just a few of the species (many of them threatened or endangered) that call the Mojave home.

Within the Mojave, the Ivanpah Valley has been identified as a critical link between conservation areas for one of the region’s most endangered inhabitants, the desert tortoise. At the same time, the Ivanpah Valley is also under mounting pressure from development of many kinds, including such land use impacts as multiple high-acreage renewable energy projects, electricity and gas transmission lines, a wastewater treatment project, airport and a high-speed rail line.

Some of the best places for the threatened desert tortoise habitat are also prime for solar energy.

The uniqueness of the Mojave and all sensitive desert landscapes comes from a fragile ecosystem balance, a balance that is easily disturbed and hard to recover. So, not surprisingly, all of these current and potential impacts are beginning to add up in Ivanpah, and are causing some real disturbance to the region and its wildlife, especially the desert tortoise. Just last month, the Brightsource Ivanpah Solar Project – the first and largest utility-scale solar project on public lands approved by the Obama Administration – began its first system tests to deliver power to the grid. The project, which covers some 3,500 acres of public land (more than 2,650 football fields-worth), is projected to cut 13.5 million tons of carbon emissions over 30 years.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently reviewing right-of-way applications for two additional large-scale solar energy projects in the Ivanpah Valley: the Silver State South Project in Nevada and the Stateline Solar Farm in California. These projects will impact approximately 2,500 and 1,700 more acres of federal land, respectively, as well as up to 2,115 tortoises, combined. Defenders is protesting the approval of the Silver State South project because it is in a location that supports a significant population of threatened desert tortoises, encompasses high quality habitat, and, most importantly, compromises the most important remaining habitat linkage for the desert tortoise in the Ivanpah Valley.

While renewable energy development is key to the future of our country’s fossil-fuel free energy independence, it must not and need not come at the expense of the continued existence of wildlife and the integrity of our public lands. Proper siting of large-scale projects is critical.

In addition to our letter to the BLM protesting the Silver State South project, we have also sent a letter to the Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notifying them of our intent to pursue legal action against the agencies for violating the Endangered Species Act by approving both of these projects in the Ivanpah Valley. Based on the best available science and statements made by the FWS, these two large-scale solar projects will fundamentally undermine that recovery and threaten the very survival of the desert tortoise population.

At-risk wildlife and habitats in the Ivanpah Valley have already been lost by decades of land development and human use, and significant threats to what remains are imminent. Thus it is essential that before making decisions about new projects like Silver State and Stateline, the BLM needs to first prepare and implement a landscape-level ecosystem conservation plan for the greater Ivanpah Valley. Such an approach should prioritize ecosystem and species conservation over continued land development, and perhaps give the desert tortoise and other sensitive wildlife in Ivanpah Valley a fighting chance to survive long into the future.

Courtney Sexton is a Communications Associate for Defenders of Wildlife

Obama is not the first president to install solar panels on the White House. Back in 1979, President Carter had solar panels installed to heat water for the first family’s home. Sounded pretty smart, but President Reagan had them removed. Fortunately, they did not go to waste, as they were installed on the roof of a dining hall at Unity College in Maine.

This solar array in Fort Carson, Colorado was built atop a closed landfill. That’s renewable energy smart from the start! (Photo credit: U.S. Army Environmental Command)

Thankfully, President Obama does not look at solar energy as the joke that Reagan and his staff did. In his June climate speech, Obama announced a new goal: to have 20 percent of the federal government’s energy usage come from renewable power by 2020. This is a great step in combating climate change, but it’s important to make sure that as we expand our renewable energy resources, they do not negatively impact important habitat for wildlife. That’s why Defenders has been working with the solar industry to ensure that solar development is done smart from the start.

Back to me: My solar panels kicked into gear in January, and according to SolarCity, my system has offset 9,767 lbs of CO2 since installation, the equivalent of 4.7 mature trees. Plus, I have been getting rebates from the regional power company because I have been using less power than I have been generating. You can’t beat that!

With the impacts of climate change becoming more and more clear, we all need to take steps to decrease our carbon footprint. If you own a house, check out the deal provided by Solar City.

I created a video of the installation of my solar panels so you can see what the process was like and what all the equipment looks like. Check it out, and if you are interested, contact Solar City for a personal consultation. The whole process was quick and easy, and there are many payment options, including no up-front costs. And as an added bonus, if you mention Defenders of Wildlife, Solar City will donate $400 to help advance our mission to conserve and protect wildlife.

We are lucky to be in a position to be able to adopt policies and practices that simultaneously help us become more responsible energy consumers and more responsible stewards of the earth, right from the start of development. Using our conservation knowledge and experience to inform renewable project planning, we can make sure that projects: are sited away from unique and sensitive lands, including crucial wildlife habitats; minimize conflict with wildlife and other important natural resources; and fully mitigate the impacts that do occur and can’t be avoided– that is what successful renewable energy development entails.

It’s easy to get excited about the potential of renewable energy for saving money, reducing carbon dioxide levels and lowering our dependence on dirty oil and gas. But we have a duty to not only help protect species and ecosystems by reducing the threat of climate change, but also to be good stewards of healthy but sensitive landscapes that are resilient in the face of a changing climate and extreme weather – using certain natural resources in new ways does not have to mean abusing others.

The excessive heat warnings are not the only reason the Salton Sea is appearing in the news this summer. The Salton Sea is the 525-square-mile saline lake in California’s Imperial and Coachella Valleys created when the Colorado River flooded in 1905 –In 2003, the State of California and four large Southern California public water districts agreed to transfer 300,000 acre-feet (or, the amount of water that would supply about 300,000 families per year) of the Colorado River westward from the agricultural fields of the Imperial Valley to the golf courses and swimming pools of San Diego. Last month, a California judge upheld this farm to city water transfer as the latest development in a ten year legal battle. This means that the agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley, which is the lake’s only water inflow (yet another example of the severe state of upset that our environment is in), will cease, and the Salton Sea could recede at the rate of six feet per year, causing a number of serious problems for humans and wildlife alike.

Exposed Playa at the Salton Sea – the Sea was three feet higher in 2001. It is estimated to drop at a rate of six feet per year once the water transfer goes into effect.

Impacts of a Dying Sea

Although mitigation components had been part of the 2003 agreement and plans for further mitigation are being made, the water transfer is currently happening and by 2017 will have already begun to impact the Sea and surrounding environment. Lacking its traditional water source now re-routed to San Diego, as the Sea recedes, it will expose fine-grained sand playas to the area’s typical high speed winds, and could likely cause a billion-dollar air quality problem for Imperial and Riverside counties. And air pollution is not the only environmental catastrophe that awaits us if the Salton Sea dries up – loss of habitat for fish, migratory birds and other wildlife presents even more reason for concern.

Over 400 species of birds use the Salton Sea for breeding or feeding throughout the year, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of individuals that use the lake as a migration stopover on their way south, or as a primary wintering habitat. Close to 80% of the American white pelican population winters at the Salton Sea. Considering that California has lost almost 90% of its wetlands which once served as primary habitat for migrating birds and waterfowl, the Salton Sea has become an extremely important wetland and stopover locale for these species, especially as the Sea is host to a designated national wildlife refuge.

As water evaporates (it is estimated that 1.1 million acre-feet of water evaporate per year) from the Salton Sea, the remaining water is becoming increasingly more saline and inhospitable to the fish, and the birds that depend on those fish as a food source.

To date, not much progress has been seen on the ground at the Salton Sea. While the State of California is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the impacts of the water transfer are moderated, it has failed to adopt a plan for dealing with the eventual ecological collapse and public health disaster facing this remote corner of the state. The last plan to address the Salton Sea landed with a thud in the California Legislature due to an $8 billion price tag. Under that plan, doing nothing to restore the Salton Sea would still cost the state $1 billon just to mitigate for the air quality, water quality and wildlife impacts from a dying Sea.

However, this year, a few rays of hope for the Salton Sea have begun to emerge. On June 27, Governor Brown committed $30 million in California’s state budget to be allocated to build a few hundred acres of bird habitat at the Salton Sea. While this funding will only build a small fraction of the total number of wildlife habitat acres needed to compensate for the shrinking Sea, we hope that this project, in conjunction with other local habitat projects, will provide a start to a longer-term effort to help the birds, and fish that feed them, as the Sea recedes. In addition, the state budget also included $2 million for a study of new potential methods to cope with the Salton Sea’s receding shorelines. While the current budget was an improvement from the previous one, the Governor took out $3 million for an important state grant program used to fund local habitat projects around the Salton Sea. This presents an unfortunate pitfall because, without this money, local organizations that have previously been dedicated to Salton Sea restoration may not have the funds to continue getting restoration projects moving on the ground.

Renewable Energy Potential

Habitat restoration has been only part of the discussion regarding the future of the Salton Sea. Many believe that a viable future for the Sea is linked to renewable energy development. If proper landscape-level planning is initiated to identify the most suitable sites, the area offers ample opportunities for wildlife-friendly renewable energy projects. Imperial County is home to California’s largest geothermal hotspot with an estimated potential of 2,200 megawatts. Geothermal energy production leaves a smaller footprint on the landscape and provides a constant source of energy to the grid. Solar energy resources are also high in the region and, if sited on the Salton Sea’s exposed playas, could offer a potential win-win situation by providing clean energy while cutting down on dust emissions from the uncovered sands. In addition, the Salton Sea has been the testing grounds for other alternative energy sources such as algae production and biofuels.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), a joint state-federal habitat conservation plan/natural communities conservation plan for renewable energy development in the desert, encompasses a large portion of the Salton Sea and all of Imperial Valley in its planning area. The DRECP aims to identify the most appropriate places for solar, wind and geothermal development while simultaneously providing for conservation of the species affected by this development. Many are hopeful that through public-private partnerships among alternative energy developers, the state and local jurisdictions, the Salton Sea’s bleak future could brighten. Imperial County is currently working with the California Energy Commission to plan for renewable energy and transmission development within the County, including identification of the most appropriate places for siting solar development on the exposed playa of the receding Salton Sea.

Defenders of Wildlife has been actively involved in the efforts to save the Salton Sea since 2001, and has worked to facilitate lower-impact renewable energy projects in California. Since 2009, Defenders has acted through the DRECP to work with developers to minimize impacts to wildlife and habitat, shape policy, complete scientific analyses, offer expert testimony on renewable energy and publish findings and recommendations like our “Smart from the start” report.

In late June, Kim Delfino and I had the chance to tour a geothermal plant at the Salton Sea and an algae research facility, and meet with local government officials in Imperial Valley to discuss the importance of the DRECP to the Salton Sea. In addition, Kim Delfino testified at a California Senate Select Committee hearing on the opportunities for renewable energy development at the Salton Sea and how this could aid in the habitat restoration projects at the lake. Renewable energy development, possibly through the DRECP, would include provisions for mitigation money that could then be directed toward funding these habitat projects. Over the next year, Defenders will be working hard to ensure that wildlife-friendly renewable energy can be sited at the Salton Sea and help mitigate some of the impacts the loss of water will have on the birds and fish that utilize this unique ecosystem.

The sun is finally setting on the poorly-planned Calico Solar project, which would have been a serious threat to the desert tortoise, burrowing owl, golden eagle and other creatures of the Mojave desert.

Defenders’ dedication to renewable energy sourcing that is “smart from the start” paid off when Calico Solar, LLC pulled the plug on a massive solar energy project that would have wrought havoc on thousands of acres public land that harbor numerous sensitive species of animals and plants and link the western and eastern regions of the vast Mojave Desert, habitat critical to the desert tortoise.

The fragile habitat of the Mojave Desert

California’s requirement that utilities obtain at least 33% of their supply from renewable resources by 2020, coupled with a federal push for renewable energy development on public lands, has turned the state into a literal hotbed for renewable projects (and it is likely to become an even bigger one with the launch of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan). While this, generally speaking, is a good thing – good for the environment, good for jobs, good for our country’s need to pare back on greenhouse gas emissions – renewable energy development is nonetheless a field that must be carefully navigated, especially in places like California’s Mojave Desert, which supports diverse communities of plants and animals, many of which are at-risk from long-term human activities in the region.

In 2007, Stirling Energy Systems Solar One, LLC (SES Solar Three LLC and SES Solar Six LLC) submitted applications to the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the construction and operation of a solar energy project that would include about 30,000 25-kilowatt solar dishes, and cover a 8,230 acre site in San Bernardino County. In 2010, the companies merged, becoming a subsidiary of Tessera Solar, and the venture we know as the Calico Solar Project was approved for licensing certification by the CEC, and by the BLM for construction and operation of the project through a right-of-way grant.

The project raised a red flag with Defenders’ staff in California from the onset, as it was clear that Calico would cause significant adverse impacts to several at-risk species and their habitats, including the threatened desert tortoise, white-margined beardtongue, Mojave fringe-toed lizard, burrowing owl, golden eagle and others. For nearly two years Defenders followed developments with increasing concern regarding the siting of the project. Comments from Defenders and several other conservation groups warned of the impacts the project would have, faulted the BLM for analyzing only the proposed site in their EIS and offered a recommendation to both the BLM and CEC to relocate the project to an environmentally acceptable site.

The Calico project was sited on prime Desert tortoise habitat.

Initially, our efforts seemed made to no avail – Calico was approved. The CEC did analyze a private land alternative, but chose to approve the proposed project, nonetheless. The BLM also included an additional surprise in their final Environmental Impact Statement: a tortoise translocation plan that would likely result in the deaths of many of these animals (both those being moved and those already occurring in the relocation habitat), and inflict undue stress on two adjacent federal Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, public land areas designated for special conservation.

Because the concerns voiced by the environmental community were not considered, Defenders (along with the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and The Wilderness Society) moved forward with strong opposition to Calico by submitting a formal protest to the BLM director on grounds that the project violated various laws, regulations and policies that are meant to protect sensitive species and their habitats on public lands. Though the BLM and CEC recognized that impacts would be significant, even a formal protest wasn’t enough to stop the continued planning of the project. As a result, Defenders, the NRDC and the Sierra Club took legal action and filed suit against the BLM and the CEC in federal court.

With continued pressure from conservationists mounting, Calico hit several other roadblocks that stalled the project, including a challenge from the Burlington-Northern Railroad Company regarding safety issues and the cancellation of a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison. It slowly became clear to developers that this project was destined to fail after all.

Clearly, Calico was NOT going to produce the kind of renewable energy we need, that is, the kind that doesn’t come at the expense of wildlife and the environment. The BLM acted hastily in approving this subpar project and disregarded the conservation values of the public lands that would be lost. Though the company cited “changed market conditions” as their reason for abandoning the Calico project, the truth of the matter speaks for itself—poorly sited projects are risky not only for the environment, but for the developers as well. Like the wildlife, developers benefit most when projects are planned smart from the start.

In a June 20 letter to the California Energy Commission, Calico formally nixed the project by surrendering its building and operating license. The sun has officially gone down on Calico, and with our continued efforts, it is instead rising in the realm of responsible renewable energy.

When renewable energy projects are done right, they are a great way to combat climate change. But the SunZia project threatens to harm some of the most fragile and biologically diverse ecosystems in the southwest.

Over the past several years, I have closely followed and commented on the SunZia Southwest Transmission line proposal – a massive, privately funded project to build two parallel 500 kilovolt electric power transmission lines across 515 miles of the desert Southwest, from Lincoln County in New Mexico to Pinal County in Arizona. I still hold hope that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will hear the pleas of the conservation community and other members of the public and recognize that the potential benefits of SunZia simply do not outweigh the extensive resource impacts it would cause.

An example of a 500kV transmission line, courtesy Bureau Reclamation

The focus of Defenders’ attention has been on the following two issues: our concern that it would facilitate additional development of fossil fuel (e.g. natural gas) sources and that all of the various routes that the BLM analyzed as options for siting the transmission line would bisect and harm key wildlife habitats and biologically rich ecosystems.

Our attempts to better understand what energy resources this line would facilitate, and who would buy this power, have been thwarted by a lack of transparency throughout the environmental review process. Proponents of SunZia have promised to create an electrical superhighway that will enable wind and solar resources in rural parts of New Mexico and Arizona to be developed and shipped westward to power-hungry population centers in Arizona and California. However, what the project proponents and BLM do not say is that the line also appears to provide a way to deliver its investors’ power from their permitted (but yet to be constructed) 1,000 Megawatt natural gas power plant near Bowie, Arizona. If the project wasn’t also being forced to serve this natural gas plant, the proposed routes would not need to cut through the sensitive San Pedro River Valley and other treasured wild lands as they now do. Furthermore, it is unclear if either California or Arizona will be in a position to buy the power SunZia plans to deliver. Currently there is very limited transmission capacity between Arizona and California, so how SunZia intends to deliver its power from central Arizona to markets in California remains an unsolved mystery.

SunZia would cut through the ecologically sensitive San Pedro River Valley.

For Defenders and me, the San Pedro route is perhaps the worst of the project’s flaws. The San Pedro River Valley is well known as one of the most biologically rich and fragile watersheds in North America. It is a major north-south bird migration corridor that supports crucial habitat for millions of birds and stopover habitat for 250 migrating bird species every year, and has among the highest bird, mammal and snake diversity on the entire continent. If the project were to run through this area, vegetation would need to be cleared and land disturbed to make way for access roads and 135-foot-tall transmission towers, and the power lines themselves would pose a collision hazard for a variety of bird species.

In addition to that irreparable damage, SunZia would also bisect conservation properties acquired in the lower San Pedro – including land that Pima County already invested $20 million in as part of their landmark conservation plan. Needless to say, Pima County is on record opposing SunZia. Disturbing the lower Valley would also mean interrupting the site of a proposed National Wildlife Refuge.

Last year, I made it a point to conduct field visits to many special places that would be negatively impacted by SunZia to assess how the project’s infrastructure might affect these landscapes. What I learned and saw left me deeply concerned, especially for the following ecosystems:

The San Pedro River Valley (see above) and the adjacent uplands, which provide habitat for the declining Sonoran desert tortoise;

The Rio Grande River just south of the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, a major bird migration corridor and habitat for imperiled birds such as the Southwestern willow flycatcher;

Desert grasslands in Luna County that provide habitat for the endangered Aplomado falcon, pronghorn, and wintering cranes and geese;

Wilcox Playa, a designated Important Bird Area that seasonally supports large numbers of sandhill cranes, shorebirds and waterfowl;

We recognize the need for new transmission lines to improve reliability, increase capacity and enable responsible development of renewable energy sources in the Southwest. But to meet these objectives, instead of building new lines that cut through sensitive lands, developers and utilities should upgrade existing transmission infrastructure where possible, and where new transmission lines are crucial, build them in areas and along corridors that have already been disturbed to minimize (and when possible, avoid) impacts to sensitive environmental and cultural resources. For example, upgrading existing lines to increase capacity, or running a power line along the same course as a highway, a structure already impacting the surrounding area, keeps the added impacts in one place instead of creating an entirely new path of disturbance. On this important point of responsible siting, SunZia completely misses the mark. It is worth pointing out that there are other competing transmission line proposals in the Southwest that appear to be making a greater effort to upgrade existing lines and follow existing linear disturbance corridors.

Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) summed up the issue well in his recent statement: “I’m not alone in wondering why we can’t focus more on following existing transmission routes. The BLM’s proposal is inconsistent with its conservation goals in the San Pedro Watershed. The benefits of building this project specifically along this route do not outweigh the risks to wildlife and sensitive ecosystems that it presents.”

Based on the issues raised above, and others, Defenders cannot support the SunZia line and asks that you join us in opposition. The BLM released the final Environmental Impact Statement for the line—the final step in the public engagement and environmental review process—on June 14, 2013 and comments on this document will be accepted until mid-August. The BLM can still deny the application for this line, therefore avoiding unacceptable impacts on our treasured resources. We are submitting comments to the BLM and have asked our members in the Southwest to do the same. To sign up for action alerts in your area and get news about this and other actions you can take to protect our wildlife and habitats, go to http://www.defenders.org/take-action.

As America moves to cut emissions of carbon pollution and reduce climate change, we will need to move away from fossil fuels and rely on renewable sources of energy. But it takes more than megawatts to be good stewards of our planet. How does the President’s new plan stack up?

As America moves to cut emissions of carbon pollution and reduce climate change, we will need to move away from fossil fuels and rely on renewable sources of energy. But it’s important to remember that it takes more than megawatts to be good stewards of our planet. How does the President’s new plan stack up?

“[T]he question is not whether we need to act.…the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late. And how we answer will have a profound impact on the world that we leave behind not just to you, but to your children and to your grandchildren.
As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act.”

President Obama announced a bold new plan on Tuesday to change the way America responds to climate change, and points the way towards a future of conservation and stewardship of our planet for future generations. One essential component of the President’s plan, as with all plans to reduce climate change, is to increase reliance on renewable energy while decreasing our use of coal and other dirty fossil fuels. In addition to spurring clean energy investment, modernizing the electric grid, and regulating carbon pollution from power plants, Obama directed the Interior Department to “green light” 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity on public lands by 2020. This new mandate builds upon the first term goal of 10,000 megawatts of wind and solar on public lands, a target that former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar claimed success on in November 2012.

As much as we need clean energy, though, we need more than megawatts. We have an obligation to leave our children and grandchildren not just a healthy atmosphere, but thriving populations of wildlife on intact habitats as well. Public lands contain the last best undisturbed places for wildlife and their habitats, as well as the best opportunities to support species as they move and adapt in response to climate change. Over 600 endangered species rely on public lands and forests for their habitats, and countless other threatened, imperiled, and common species do as well. The trees and soil on public lands sequester carbon pollution out of the atmosphere, and public watersheds clean our drinking water and support many wetland and aquatic species both upstream and in our deltas and oceans. We have a duty not only to help protect species and ecosystems by reducing the threat of climate change, but also by serving as good stewards of healthy landscapes that are resilient enough to withstand a changing climate.

Following Obama’s speech, current Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said “[if] the president gives me a goal, I’m going to meet it.” When you set a goal in megawatts, however, you get the results in megawatts. Some of the first 10,000 megawatts were approved without paying enough attention to conserving these species and their habitats, and others may actively harm vulnerable populations of desert tortoise, golden eagles, kit fox, pronghorn, and other sensitive species. We can and must do better than this on our public inheritance, via landscape-scale planning and mitigation and setting clear and strong conservation targets. We believe the President’s goal can be met, but it needs to be done right.

This solar array in Fort Carson, Colorado was built atop a closed landfill (Photo credit: U.S. Army Environmental Command)

We recently blogged about how we can be smart with how we plan and permit utility-scale energy generation on public lands, but there are other ways to build out renewables to meet climate change goals. The vast majority of the wind energy development to date has actually been on private lands, not public, a trend that seems likely to continue. Rooftops, parking lots, and disturbed and degraded lands, often in the private domain, represent win-win opportunities to site renewable energy on lands that are low-quality habitats. The solar industry has been upended by declining costs for photovoltaic (PV) panels, which can be built in smaller and more modular footprints across a broader geographic area than the solar thermal plants which can only be constructed in the desert southwest.

We need clean energy to combat climate change, but we need to do so in a responsible manner. We need more than megawatts. Let’s think outside the box to find creative and low-impact ways to build renewable energy, whether on or off public lands. On public lands, we encourage the Department of the Interior to build upon their work with the BLM’s western Solar Program and other initiatives to guide renewable energy development to the best places on the landscape so that our Nation’s rich wildlife heritage is protected for future generations.

It has been a while since we moved Defenders’ Alaska office a block away to The Solar Building at 441 West 5th Avenue, Anchorage. The 1957 art deco building is aptly named for the recent installation of a full wall of 64 solar energy panels that make this one of only a few commercial buildings in Alaska powered in part by renewable energy, and the largest project for a commercial building in Anchorage. The panels are expected to supply 11,651 kilowatts per year — five to 10 percent of the five-story building’s electricity needs, said Marvin Kuentzel of Renewable Energy Systems, the Anchorage business that ordered the panels and installed them. Anchorage businessman and building owner Steve Zelener is pleased with the results and continues to remodel the building’s interior. In fact, he’s planning to install a ticker device so tenants and visitors can see how much energy the solar panels are generating.

The dark blue squares on the left side of the building are the solar panels.

Claire Colegrove, our Alaska Representative, and I really like our new office. It is bright, sunny and has high-efficiency lighting and heating – a huge improvement over our previous office space. Since Alaska and the Arctic are ground zero for climate change, we believe it is important to work in a building that uses energy sources with reduced emissions, which helps to fight the shifts in climate that are affecting our wildlife and environment.

Other conservation-minded tenants share space in the building, and the owner hopes that these energy-saving retrofits will encourage still other progressive companies to lease space in the Solar Building.

This past weekend, our building was featured in the Anchorage Solar Tour, sponsored by American Solar Energy Society, ACAT, REAP, ACE as the Solar Building at 441 W. 5th Avenue in 2012.

We know that traditional energy sources like oil, gas and coal pose great risks to wildlife, be it from oil spills, habitat destruction or the release of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. But what about renewable energy, like solar and wind?

These are an essential part of reducing the pollution that comes from our energy use. But their size and how they function can have a huge impact on wildlife and their habitat. So, how can we develop these renewable energy resources without sacrificing wildlife?

The answer, as the saying goes, is “location, location, location.”

Traditionally, energy developers and land managers have picked project sites by focusing on the available energy resource; thinking about how those projects might affect natural resources and wildlife was an afterthought. But this way of doing business inevitably leads to delays, uncertainty, and conflict when developers discover after the fact that sensitive, threatened, or endangered wildlife may be on the site.

Defenders and our partners are working to change this paradigm in ways that reduce the potential for conflicts with wildlife while still permitting responsible renewable energy development to go ahead in the right places.

It starts with a landscape-scale analysis of energy potential and wildlife conservation priorities using many of the mapping tools and technologies currently available from state and federal wildlife agencies and non-profit conservation organizations. This allows energy developers to identify areas of potential energy-wildlife conflict and avoid them.

Next, developers can attempt to minimize wildlife impacts by adjusting the project’s scope or the way in which the project will be operated (e.g., installing radar to detect when birds are migrating through an area and shutting down wind turbines to reduce the likelihood of collisions).

Finally, when facing unavoidable impacts, developers can offset them by purchasing or restoring habitat or contributing funds to a “mitigation bank” from which proceeds can be used to protect other lands that will benefit the wildlife and habitats impacted by the project. The idea is to ensure that lands and habitat acquired or restored will make up for the lands lost or disturbed by the energy project.

Combined, these mechanisms for dealing with the potential risks posed by a project are referred to as the “mitigation framework.” And, they are the means by which we can produce renewable energy without sacrificing sensitive lands and wildlife in return.

Defenders is developing and promoting this approach on many fronts. Last June, Defenders and our partners hosted a workshop on mitigation policy in Washington, DC. Leaders from the conservation community, energy industries, and state and federal agencies gathered to discuss the latest techniques and tools in mitigation and how to continue to improve their use. We followed that up this spring with another workshop at the annual North American Wildlife and Natural Resources conference in Arlington, VA, where Defenders and others led a series of panels and presentations on landscape-level planning and mitigation.

In between these two conferences, we have been working on using the mitigation framework to improve the planning and placement of individual solar and wind projects, and we participated in a series of groundbreaking workshops led by the Bureau of Land Management to define the first Region-wide Mitigation Plan for one of the solar energy zones identified by the Department of the Interior in their western solar plan. We helped Argonne National Laboratory develop a new data mapping tool for understanding and reducing wildlife conflict in transmission line planning, worked with the Arizona BLM on its first-of-a-kind Restoration Design Energy Program to identify and avoid places of high conflict across the landscape, and we continue to participate in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan process in California.

As our country further embraces renewable energy, the question of how it affects wildlife and habitat will continue to be key, and Defenders is committed to promoting a landscape-scale approach to planning for energy and wildlife conservation in key areas. Remember: “location, location, location…” By using existing science and mapping technologies, we can work with the solar and wind energy industries to help them build better projects – better for wildlife and better for them because reducing conflicts with wildlife increases the likelihood that projects get built in less time and at lower cost. That, in turn, means that more clean energy is available to meet our nation’s energy needs and less dirty energy is needed. And that will benefit us all, particularly sensitive wildlife already threatened by a warming planet and increasing habitat loss.